


Kindred Spirit

by lunaseemoony



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Post Regeneration, Prompt Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/pseuds/lunaseemoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor shares a landmark from his early traveling days with Rose, and Rose shares a secret she’s been keeping close to her chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindred Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> For [timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com) weekly drabble theme prompted by [jeeno2](http://jeeno2.tumblr.com) “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Inspired by [this](http://lunaseemoony.tumblr.com/post/113690163270/i-want-to-share-about-a-special-place-for-me-and).

“Doctor, why’re we stopping? Thought you said we need to get to the village by sundown?” 

When she turned around he was feverishly fishing for something inside his jacket and shouted, “Aha!” in triumph when he produced his specs. Shoving up his nose, he bent over and grinned, his brow arching with glee. He couldn’t really be studying a tree on the side of a road. Except this was the Doctor, so he probably was.

“It is! Awww I can’t believe it! It’s you!” He peered back at her to share in the excitement but found only confusion on her face. “Haven’t seen this little guy in hundreds of years! It’s older than I am!”

“You’re talkin’ to a tree?” Not much point in asking but she did anyway. She was exhausted and her feet were threatening to call it quits. 

He rolled his eyes in disapproval. “Oh, this is so much more than a tree.” 

He knocked on the wood and put his ear to the trunk, pouting his lip in concentration until he found a sweet spot and pulled. The Doctor turned to Rose again and beamed.

“So it’s got a door. That’s _brilliant_ , that is,” she teased but smiled when just a hint of disappointment wrinkled his grin. 

He beckoned her over with a quirk of his head and waggled his eyebrows while sitting down leaning up against the tree. Impatience gave way to curiosity. How could she say no when he was adorably keen on showing it to her? She was still getting to know this new face, but it was just as charming as the last.

“This, Rose Tyler, is Kindred Spirit. It’s like a post box.”

“A post box? What for?”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Who collects the letters then?” 

“Haven’t got a clue!” his grin grew wider. 

“So then who put it here?”

“No idea.”

The more confused she got the bigger his smile grew. “You’re having me on.”

“I’m really not.” 

The hollowed out hole in the trunk was full of old books, loose pieces of parchment, quills, and sheets of dust. All of them were messy with earmarks, added pages, and what looked like years of wear. The Doctor picked one up and started thumbing through it. He reminded her of a little boy at Christmas.

“Come here, take a look, Rose.”

She looked over his shoulder, nipping her lip as she breathed in his woody cologne. Just as she was beginning to read he grabbed her hand and dragged her down to the ground by his side. The Doctor began to read aloud. When his gravelly voice gave way to a warm tone Rose became lost in it and thought. He told stories of travelers from all over. She learned of their hopes and dreams; their grief and joy; the homes they left behind and their far off destinations. Some even left wishes and their hearts’ deepest desires hidden between these dusty volumes.

Their stories produced more questions than they answered. Did they know what this hollowed out tree was for? Did they know to look for it? Had the Doctor brought Rose to this planet with the expressed purpose of showing her this mysterious tree? What happened to the books and letters once the box was full? Did any of their wishes come true? Why leave their intimate thoughts here of all places, where everyone could see? Had the Doctor ever left a message in one of these books? It was all a riddle, wrapped in mystery, inside an enigma; not unlike the thoughts left on these pages inside this mysterious tree.

By the time Rose tuned back in she found herself leaning on his shoulder as he read. The sun was descending on the horizon and she knew they had to leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to break the spell of calm that fell over him as he divulged the secrets left in tree. Eventually he reached a blank page and grinned.

“Should we leave one? A message?” he asked.

“Yeah I think we should. We’ll each leave one.” She grabbed another volume from the trunk and opened it. “No Gallifreyan! It doesn’t always translate, and people have got to be able to read it.”

They sat back to back after he agreed to write it in English. Rose spent a whole minute wondering what he’d written so when he chirped, “Done!” he caught her off guard. She rushed to scrawl her own message in the book she’d grabbed.

On a quiet evening aboard the TARDIS months later, they would each confess to having left the same message inside that mysterious old tree.


End file.
